A severely autistic teenager sparked a frantic search after he failed to turn up at school - only to be found hours later slumped in the back of a bus that should have safely transported him there.
Jimmy Hudson, 13, who is selectively non-verbal, fell into a deep sleep after he was left on the sweltering bus - which had been parked outside the driver's home at the end of his shift - for more than two-and-a-half hours.
His distraught mother Tracy, 45, from Westcliff in Essex, has now lashed out at school transport firm Vecteo, owned by Southend-on-Sea City Council, for their 'negligence' and said an apology was not enough.
'A sorry doesn't cut it if my son was lying in a morgue,' she told MailOnline, adding Jimmy was physically unharmed but has been left emotionally traumatised by the distressing incident last Monday.
Recalling the events of that morning, Tracy said she had escorted Jimmy - the first of 13 children picked up each day - onto the Vecteo bus as it made its way towards St Nicholas School in Southend.
